Like newspaper publishers and other content providers, many website owners display advertisements on their websites to earn revenue. For instance, a website publisher or owner may earn a small fee each time a user selects an ad on its webpage. Various factors can influence the extent to which users select an advertisement on a webpage, such as the color, size, and layout of the ads, e.g., with respect to other content on the webpage. Another important factor is the relevance of the ad to the website's target audience. To increase revenue, it is in the interest of website owners to configure the ads on the webpage in a manner that makes them more likely to be seen and selected by users. Content publishers also have an interest in limiting the extent to which the ad or ads may interfere with the primary content on the webpage.
Many services that enables users to configure pages such as blogs do not offer ad customization at all. A single ad format is often used for every user page. Other services enable users to request ads on their page, but the user must manually customize its format, e.g., via software such as TypePad™. Thus, the conventional process by which a website administrator places ads on a webpage is often highly manual in nature.
This is especially true for user blogs, which are typically created and administered by users who lack knowledge of or access to sophisticated webpage formatting tools. According to a conventional method, users manually select a format and color scheme for their blog. Users then edit the webpage template to include code related to the ad block. Users typically make poor decisions about colors and ad placement. For example, users often select default color schemes, even though default color schemes for ad blocks and user blogs typically do not work well together. Regardless, user formatting decisions typically do not reflect the accumulated marketing wisdom of institutional advertisers who are positioned to receive data regarding the effectiveness of ads of a given format on a given webpage format.
These and other drawbacks exist with current systems and methods.